Dane and Emily marry

Dane and Emily marry in Emily's backyard garden, where a carefully prepared ceremony turns their promises to one another into a shared, public commitment. The wedding is intimate in its setting and personal in its details: family and friends help prepare, flowers connect the ceremony to an earlier moment between them, and the vows define a partnership in which devotion and independence are meant to coexist.

Preparation and Setting

The wedding comes soon after the events preceding it. Dane and Emily persuade Geraldine West to remain in town for the next few days while they put Emily's backyard garden in order. Dane and Benton Bishop also have their tuxedos fitted. These preparations give the occasion a domestic scale: the ceremony takes place not at an elaborate venue but in the garden of Emily's own home, prepared with the help of people close to the couple.

Dane stands facing the back of the house with Benton Bishop beside him as his best man. A string quartet begins to play the processional, and Jas Robertson is present across from them. The positions of the wedding party establish the ceremony's central arrangement: Dane waits with Benton, while Emily approaches with Jas there to support her. The scene's emphasis is less on display than on the people who have accompanied the couple to this point.

Emily's Entrance

Emily walks slowly down the aisle beneath a veil, carrying a bouquet made from flowers she had begun growing on Dane's advice the previous year. That detail brings an earlier exchange into the wedding itself: the flowers are not merely decoration but a living trace of something they shared before this day. Her dress is simple ivory rather than an elaborate train of ruffles and lace, matching the ceremony's restrained, personal character.

Dane's response is immediate and physical. He grins so broadly that his face begins to hurt, feels overwhelmed by happiness, and finds his eyes watering as Emily approaches. Benton nudges him, drawing his attention to the bride's entrance; Dane looks briefly toward his best man and then returns his gaze to Emily. When she reaches him, Jas grins at them as Emily hands off her bouquet. The couple lift her veil together, and Dane tells her she looks beautiful. The scene moves from anticipation to recognition through small gestures rather than a grand interruption: the nudge, the exchanged look, and the lifting of the veil.

Vows and Exchange of Rings

The officiant explains that the bride and groom have written their own vows and invites Dane to speak first. Taking Emily's hands and gently squeezing them, Dane promises to keep her in his heart through sickness and health, poverty and prosperity. He also pledges to stand beside her, support her spirits when she needs help, and build her higher for however long they are together. His vow joins conventional promises of enduring love to a more particular offer of encouragement and practical emotional support.

Emily's response makes trust and return central to her commitment. She promises to stay with Dane through hardship and prosperity, to love and hold him, and always to come home to him. She also promises to build him up rather than tear him down, and to trust his judgment. Calling him her former guiding light and conscience, she says he will continue to be both. The vow reaches back to the support she has received from him while making that history a promise for their life together.

The ceremony's emotional force is sharpened by Emily's awareness that marriage does not require her to surrender the self she has become. She is no longer the neglected girl she once was, nor does she have to fight for her place in a man's world or assert her success over Dane. Their bond, as she understands it, allows her to choose submission without being forced into it; it also allows her to exert independence without diminishing his self-worth. The vows therefore express more than affection: they frame their union as a relationship in which strength, trust, and room for Emily's autonomy can coexist.

Marriage and Significance

After the vows, Emily and Dane take rings from their respective attendants, exchange them, and say their affirmations. The officiant then pronounces them man and wife and invites Dane to kiss the bride. The sequence gives the spoken promises a ceremonial consequence: private commitments become the basis on which the couple are formally joined.

Dane draws Emily into his arms, and they kiss while holding one another upright. The gesture gathers the scene's central meanings into a physical image of mutual support: neither stands apart from the other, and both are needed to hold the embrace. When they separate, they grin at each other, happy in their shared foolishness. Their wedding closes not with a declaration of perfect ease but with the two of them choosing one another, publicly and tenderly, after vows that promise both closeness and trust.